JOAN VASSOS Getting Ready for LOVE!

As The Golden Bachelorette nears its big finish, Joan Vassos opens up to Us about finding romance later in life after a devastating loss - and doing it on her terms. Finally, she feels seen, hopeful and healed

- SARAH HEARON

It took 63 iterations of The Bachelor- including The Bachelorette, Bachelor Pad, Bachelor in Paradise and a few less fruitful spinoffs (why didn't The Bachelor Presents: Listen to Your Heart take off?) -to get the franchise to its Golden era. Skepticism greeted the idea of a senior edition (only 60- to 75-year-olds, please), but in fall 2023, The Golden Bachelor was an immediate hit, delivering sincerity, authenticity and the rightest reasons ever. Four days into 2024, Gerry Turner, then 72, married final rose recipient Theresa Nist, 71, live on ABC in front of 5.22 million viewers (most of whom were probably ugly-crying).

But the happily ever after collapsed and skepticism came hurtling back when the couple filed for divorce just three months later. Enter (or should we say re-enter) Joan Vassos, who had quit Turner's season after just three episodes to be with her postpartum daughter. In the exit limo, the gregarious grandmother and school administrator from Rockville, Md., movingly declared that the experience had helped her feel less "invisible" after the loss of her husband of 32 years, John.

"I actually said it kind of offhandedly," Vassos, 61, recalls to Us exclusively. "I had been feeling for a really long time that as you get to be this age, people just don't notice you as much. You could walk into a restaurant and be standing near a host stand waiting for your turn, and they will look at all of the younger people around you and speak to them before you. You have to be bold and make yourself seen."

For Vassos, age truly is just a number: She could be in her 40s. "I don't feel like I'm an old person. I shouldn't be taking a backseat to my kids," she says. "I deserve to have a life, but I don't think society thinks that right now. That's something that needs to be addressed."